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Saturday, 12 May 2012

Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

A zombie who yearns for a better life ends up falling in love—with a human—in this astonishingly original debut novel. R is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams. He doesn’t enjoy killing people; he enjoys riding escalators and listening to Frank Sinatra. He is a little different from his fellow Dead. Not just another zombie novel,Warm Bodiesis funny, scary, and deeply moving.

I was a little sceptical about reading a zombie romance. I first I thought that it was going to be some kind of zombie survivors romance, but no, it's most definitely a Zombie romance.
R is a fresh zombie (just R because he can't remember his name. Zombies don't have great memories, ya know), which means that's he's not as 'rotted' as most; his flesh isn't dropping off and his organs aren't showing. Hot, right? He can speak a few one syllable words if he really, really tries (although practice makes perfect!).

R's bestfriend is M. M likes porn and women, only he doesn't quite remember what to do once he's naked. None of them do. So he spends a lot of time standing around naked with zombies of the lady variety.
R is more coherent than the average zombie. He gets married and obtains 2 children (this was a shock to me too, and seemed to come from nowhere). He wants the 2.4 children kinda simple zombie life, but then he manages to complicate things by rescuing a young woman and deciding he wants to keep her 'safe' in a boeing 747.

Part of the story is told by Perry. This happens every time R nibbles at Perry's brain; he get visions of perry's life. I found this a little confusing at first, especially towards to end. I'd be reading then realise I didn't have a clue what was going on.
There's also a zombie school where they teach zombie kids how to properly kill a living human. We wouldn't want them to starve would we! Again, like the marriage, I found this a little left field.
So, in between talking the kids to school and keeping the wife happy, R goes and falls for the stupid human. Taking her on 'dates' and entertaining her. Don't feel too sorry for the wife tho, she's at the church stepping out with some other rotter. In fact don't feel too sorry for any of them. Emotions are a distant memory so they're not really bothered.
Julie, the human, is a tough little cookie and gives off some serious attitude, which gets on my nerves a little (read quite a lot). I don't know which is worse, romance between 2 zombies, or one between a human and zombie. No, actually I do... :/

However, even though I felt all kinds of icky I wanted to keep reading, I couldn't stop.
The continuity was a bit baffling. At some point I was told that they don't have sex because there's no blood pumping through the body, so you know, it was kinda impossible. And even putting that aside, they can't remember how to do it anyway. But then he'd wake up to his wife having sex with her 'boyfriend'. I don't want to know if he's limp or that she's dry. Yeah, I did say icky :s

I was a little confused when R had a vision and was able to talk to both Julie and Perry, and they him. And I was a little EWW when julie asked R if he wanted to sleep in the bed next to her, because, really?! Even when bugs crawl out of his mouth in the morning? Takes morning breath to a whole new level.
I tried but failed to take to Julie for the first half of the story. She was just too hard faced for my liking, but she grew on me and by the end, and even though she kissed a zombie, I liked her.
The ick factor kinda faded as the story proceeded, and if you like the sound of the above this book is for you.

I couldn't bring myself to dislike it because of it. Over all it was a quick, and entertaining read. I really did enjoy it.